Kharge meets top Congress leaders to strategise party’s outreach plan

PTI, Dec 24, 2022, 10:19 AM IST

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday chaired a meeting of top leaders on ways to strengthen the organisation and to take forward the party’s soon-to-be launched outreach initiative.

Kharge held deliberations with party general secretaries, in-charges of various states, PCC presidents and CLP leaders on ways to take forward the two-month long ‘Haath se haath jodo abhiyan’ that would start from January 26.

Kharge said the Opposition put forward 16 major issues during the Winter Session of Parliament but the Narendra Modi government did not agree to hold a debate on even one of them.

The entire Opposition kept demanding a discussion on national security, inflation, unemployment but the government ”kept running away”, giving one fabricated excuse after the other.

”One thing is definitely worth noting that whether it is the question of China’s transgressions or providing employment to the youth, whether it is the rising inflation or any other important issue related to the people, the government could not answer on any one of them,” the Congress president said.

”In the name of reply, there were only personal attacks from the BJP. This is a proof of the Modi government’s colossal governance failure,” he alleged.

Talking about the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Kharge said it is creating history and is getting ”immense support” from the people. ”Due to this, the Modi government is very rattled and is finding excuses to create impediments for the yatra.” He also urged Pradesh Congress committees to ensure that the panels that they form are based on merit.

The Congress chief said he had talked about organisational accountability from top to bottom and told party leaders that performance measurement should also be undertaken of all office bearers every six months.

He said appointment of office bearers should not just be a formality but should also benefit the party. He told leaders to ensure that those working hard for the organisation should not be ignored.

He also called for taking all the 9,800 PCC delegates and 2.6 crore new members in the party’s ‘Haath se haath jodo abhiyan’ on the digital media.

Kharge lauded the efforts of Rahul Gandhi in undertaking the Bharat Jodo Yatra and said the march has become a public movement and has created history.

He also noted that the Modi government is rattled by the success of the yatra and is making impediments to stop it somehow.

AICC general secretary K C Venugopal told reporters later that PCC presidents and CLP leaders were given a clear cut action plan for the implementation of this programme. PCC level meetings are over in all states and district level meetings are going on to implement this programme which will be followed by block level meetings, he said. ”After these two months, a major campaign — follow up of Bharat Jodo Yatra — will give a clear message to every household of this country,” he said. Venugopal said the meeting also complimented Rahul Gandhi for having undertaken such a massive yatra throughout the country. Today, as you all know that this yatra emerged as a greatest movement in this country, proper follow up of this yatra is needed and that is why Congress Steering Committee decided for a ‘Haath Se Haath Jodo Abhiyan’ from January 26, he said.

”This is a two-month massive campaign at the grassroot level. Two months of continuous padyatra will be there at the block level under the leadership of senior leaders. Pradesh Congress Committee will assign two leaders for each block to conduct the padyatra, he said. He added that the padyatra will be undertaken by the leadership of the Block Congress Committee, but two leaders deputed by the PCC will also be there to lead it. ”Village level sabhas, interaction with influential people in villages and massive district level Karyakarta convention will also be held,” he said. The culmination of this padyatra will happen with a massive rally at the state headquarters in which the party chief or Rahul Gandhi will participate. ”There will be a separate women’s yatra in the state capital for one day led by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra ,” he said.

Kharge earlier called upon every party worker and leader to ensure that the connect with people started with the yatra should continue and be taken forward in the form of the ‘haath se haath jodo abhiyan’.

He said in Karnataka, the party is launching the door-to-door exercise from January 1 as a pilot exercise and will be launched in different states from January 26.

He asserted that the Congress has to continue to raise the voice of the poor, the oppressed sections of society besides SCs/STs/ and OBCs.

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, general secretary organisation K C Venugopal, Leader of the House in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, other general secretaries Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik, Kumari Selja, Tariq Anwar, Avinash Pandey, party treasurer Pawan Kumar Bansal, Jitendra Singh and all PCC presidents and CLP leaders were present at the meeting.

The Congress has decided to launch to reach out to every household across the country. The leaders also deliberated on the modalities of the party’s initiative during which the message of the Bharat Jodo Yatra will be taken to the people’s doorstep. The campaign will be launched soon after the yatra ends in Jammu and Kashmir by January end. The Bharat Jodo Yatra is set to enter the national capital on Saturday. The campaign is part of the Congress efforts to continue its mass outreach plan which has gained momentum after the launch of the Bharat Jodo Yatra from September 7 from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu.

As part of the campaign, padyatras will be taken out and a letter from Rahul Gandhi, that talks about the core message of the yatra, will be distributed among the people along with a ‘charge sheet’ against the Narendra Modi government.

The decision to undertake the campaign was taken at the first meeting of the Congress steering committee constituted by Kharge.